


Words

by Carcino



Category: Original Fiction - Fandom, Original Work
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-27
Updated: 2014-09-27
Packaged: 2018-02-18 23:30:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2365982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Carcino/pseuds/Carcino
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Inspired by the quote. “There exists, for everyone, a sentence - a series of words - that has the power to destroy you..." </p><p>This story focuses on a character who has the ability to see such a sentence above the heads of everyone they meet.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Reverie

I could sum up most of my life experience in a single word. ‘Hurt’. Not the physical type,but the emotional kind. Feelings that were so sharp and so jagged that they caused people to wish they were being cut by actual knives; instead, they had to feel the black hole in their chest gripping at their lungs and crushing them until they could barely stand.

I was never the one who felt that way; I dealt out things I thought that I could never receive. 

I tried to hold back most of the time, but sometimes, just sometimes there was a slip of the tongue, a particularly bad mood, or a printed note in that one girl’s locker. You know the girl I’m talking about; that one girl with all the gossip and is willing to give all her opinions about everyone you care about. I’m talking about that one girl that should have just kept her mouth shut for once in her damn life, but she couldn’t stop and she didn’t want to stop. 

But then she was crying, she was crying loud and she was crying hard and I knew it was my fault. I did this to her. I hurt her.

Everyone was staring at her in pity by then, but deep down they knew she had it coming, even if they felt sorry for her. The girl wasn’t going through that kind of pretty sobbing either, she was wailing and howling and everyone thought it was so repulsive. Repulsive enough that no one brought it up again. Her friends never said. “Hey remember the time?” They weren’t that cruel. People left her alone. No one gossiped about her. No one was secretly happy. Especially not me.

I knew what kind of pain the girl was going through. It was the type of emotional scarring that kept people up at night thinking about how much they hated themselves rather than how much they despised the people who made them feel that way. 

I knew these things because I saw them. I saw it above their heads, and then I saw it on their faces and in how they walked. I saw people act on fear, ambition and paranoia. Eventually I realized that most people think they act to make their lives better, but that’s not how people work. People do what they do to stop things getting worse. It’s why there are so many parts in life that are static and unchanging until something happens and everything changes, one of those events happened on my sixth birthday.

My father left on the day before I turned six. I never got to ask him if he had it too, I just remember the last thing he said to me. He took my hands in his and with a sad smile and a cracking voice he said. “You’re going to see things soon. You’re going to want to say them because you’re curious, and you’re going to want to say them when you’re angry.” 

My father’s eyes were so bright that day. They were so bright I could barely understand what he was saying. “But trust me,” he continued “don’t tell people the things you read. Promise me... I want you to promise me that you’re not going to say it to anyone, no matter how cruel the world gets, no matter how they’ve wronged you. You don’t say it, you don’t write it. Don’t let the world break you, don’t let anyone break you. You and you alone are responsible for the happiness or misery you cause.” My father was crying by then, I didn’t understand him, but I knew it was important. I never forgot those words, even if I didn’t always follow them.

That was the last thing my father said to me. I woke up on my birthday a day later, my dad wasn’t home and mum was so scared that she barely paid attention to me, I was so selfish, all kids are at that age. It was around midday when I started to see them for the first time, dozens of words hovering above my mother’s head. I couldn’t read much at that age, but I tried sounding the words out. I can’t quite recall the words I spoke, but I remember how my mother reacted. Her hands covered her mouth and tears began to run, to pour, I hadn’t even said half the words I saw, but I knew that she would only cry harder if I kept reading. I hugged her so hard and I told her that I loved her. She was too distraught to reply.

They found my father’s body two days later. He died in a head on car crash. I still wonder if it was suicide. It probably was if I’m to be honest. I just wish he killed himself in a way that only hurt him. He didn’t have to crash into another car. He didn’t have to take that family with him. Maybe it was a spur of the moment thing. I lost a lot of respect for him that day, which as a six year old, was a lot.

I found my mother’s body a few days after my father’s funeral. Hers was definitely suicide. Most people, including my mother, don’t seem to understand that when you die, all your muscles relax and you let everything out, so I still remember smelling her long before I ever found her body. It was hanging in the cupboard. It’s sad really, urine is not something most people associate with death, yet I still cried every time I went to the bathroom for an entire year. I made sure never to go to the bathroom at school.

In year 2 I tried to ask the others kids if they could see words above other people’s heads as well. No one ever could. Eventually the teacher found out about my ‘condition’ and tried to ‘help me’

My teacher made the mistake of asking what her words were, confident they would be meaningless or amusing, I could tell by the way she smiled, like it was a joke. I explained that I promised my daddy that I wouldn’t tell anyone no matter what, but eventually she convinced me. I told her what her words were and her smiled dropped. She never looked at me the same way. I think she was afraid of me. I was just a kid. I didn’t understand what it meant to have your teacher be afraid of you.

I never talked about the words with anyone ever again. I didn’t know what these words were, but I wanted them to go away. I wanted to be normal and I wanted it so badly that I hit my head over and over again with my hands. I wanted to beat the words out of my head and when my hands didn’t hit hard enough, I started to use a wall. I wanted my teacher to act like she cared about me again. I wanted my mom and my dad back. But mostly I just wanted to cry. 

By the time I was 13, I decided that the words were never going to go away and that I may as well learn to deal with them. Age 13 was when my life started to improve. 

People always preached to me about the joys of accepting yourself. It was such a cheesy moral that I usually ignored it. But now I know that just because it’s cheesy, doesn’t mean it’s not right.

At 14 I started to notice things about the words and how they worked. I noticed how some people had more words, while others had less and I realized that in most cases, the more emotionally stable the person, the more words they had above their head. The popular kids at school either had hundreds of words, or barely any. This amused me for so many reasons.

I noticed that some of the kindest people I knew were just a few words away from breaking, while some of the cruellest had paragraphs upon paragraphs. I learnt that emotional stability doesn’t correlate to goodness. 

I’m not sure what age it happened, maybe I always knew it, but I suddenly understood what the words really were. They were the sequence of words that would cause the fastest and hardest emotional breakdown to the person they were hanging over. When I realized this as a conscious thought instead of a subconscious one, it made me sick to my core. I thought of my mother’s hanging corpse and I almost puked. I didn’t go to the bathroom for a while after that.

There was a long, dark time in my life where I believed that I caused my mother’s suicide. I cannot explain how awful it feels to think that you drove a person to kill themselves. It made me wish that I used a gun instead of using words. Maybe I pushed her over the edge, maybe I didn’t. But I couldn’t even remember the words I said so the clarity of retrospect couldn’t help me. Eventually I decided that the words are upsetting for sure, but they are not always lethal. I convinced myself that my mother would have killed herself even without me. It was a massive weight off my shoulders, even if the doubt was always there.

I judged that by the diversity of the words, everyone alive was different when it came to what would break them. Some were broken by crushing their hopes, others by decimating their self-image. I’ve even seen a few people who had the exact words to prove that their husband or wife is banging the neighbour. 

I knew I could use this power for a lot of bad reasons. I’m glad I didn’t.


	2. Day out

It was a cold day when we first met, I swear he couldn’t have looked more than eighteen years old at the time; he always did have such a youthful face. Now that I look back at it, I don’t recall what it was that I noticed about him first; whether it was how he sat, alone and without a jacket, covered in flakes of snow. Maybe I noticed the words above his head first. They were so unique and now that I think about it, they were frighteningly brief. 

In my experience, only the most broken of people had a single sentence as their words, but what was more curious than his brevity was that his words were obviously a quote. I had never seen a quote before as someone’s words, and I was so damn curious that I was almost going to ask him… But that was before I remembered that doing so would be an incredibly horrible idea.

“I’ll be back soon, I swear.” Those were his exact words. That poor boy; I had so many ideas on what it could have meant. Maybe his mother committed suicide just after saying those words. Perhaps it was it a girlfriend who went out shopping and never came back? It had to be related to death. Emotional trauma like that is almost always related to death.

I was still staring at him when it happened, this unsuspecting little girl and her mother walked past the boy; I barely paid any attention to them until it was too late. The little girl broke free of her mother’s hand and started running after a nearby dog. The mother demanded she come back, but the child ran like all young children do. Fast and in a straight line away from the nearest authority, the girl yelled over her shoulder almost the worst possible thing. “I’ll be right back, I promise.” 

The boy straightened his back slightly and time stood still as I processed what just happened. My blood ran colder than the falling snow and I began to wonder, did the boy hear her? Did that long haired boy, that boy sitting alone in the falling snow hear that girl’s words? I began to wonder if the words had to exact for them to affect him, or if they were close enough to do the damage. My answer came when the boy placed his hands over his eyes and began to sob. His sobs were so quiet, not at all like that one girl that I had written that note to, the girl who wailed when she was faced with her words. This boy’s reaction was much worse than that. He didn’t make his hell public. His hell was inside him, burning hot enough to keep him warm even in the freezing snow. That poor boy.

I wanted to help him, say something comforting, but I just sat there, watching him cry silently. I couldn’t believe how hopeless I was. I was wracked with so much self-loathing then and there that I almost didn’t see what happened next. The boy’s words faded away and were quickly replaced by new words. Even shorter than before.

“Do it.” His words said.

The boy stood slowly, wiped away his tears and let out a miserable laugh that was more sincere than any sound I had ever heard before. I almost let him walk away, and I’m so glad I didn’t. If I let him go… He would be… Gone…


	3. Day in

The boy tugged at my arm, pleading for me not to leave him “Come on, you can’t leave now! The game’s only half over.” his name was Lucas, and even though he was my best friend and roommate and I loved him as much as someone with those titles deserved, I really think he should have understood that my date was more important than him getting his butt kicked in PS3 games by me.

I shook my head slowly “Sorry man, I really have to go, I can’t be late again cos if I do, they’ll think I’m doing it on purpose.” I pulled my arm out of his grasp with ease and In reply he loudly groaned and fell face first into the sofa beside me. He lifted his head to speak “Can we finish when you get back?”

I waggled my finger at him. “We can finish if I get back.” Lucas pouted; I ignored him and continued speaking. “My date is smoking hot, which is lucky, because so am I” we both smiled sarcastically at each other and Lucas mumbled something into the couch. What a nerd.

At the time we were having this conversation, I had barely been able to make out the words above Lucas’s head, there were so many that it was almost illegible. I was glad the words took over the same amount of space regardless of how many there were. If they kept the same size regardless of amount, I wouldn’t even see Lucas, just a pillar of words. 

Over the past few years his word count had grew bit by bit as his bitterness turned to enthusiasm and his apathy turned to passion. I think he was having a similar effect on me. 

I still remember, during one of those late night talks where we stay up until 2AM and the truth came out, he told me that it was all because of me that he was still alive. About the noose, the pills, the gun, the rooftop and how he was gonna roll a dice and end himself depending on the roll. He said that if he rolled a six or a one, he would have stayed alive. He said that was because a six is lucky, and everyone knows that surviving a suicidal stage is lucky. He also said that rolling a one would mean that he was unlucky, and he really wanted to die, so it would be pretty unfortunate if he didn’t die. He said that was his plan, but I stopped him and gave him something to live for.

I reached for the door, but Lucas said one last thing before I left. “Hey, you never answered my question from a few hours back.” He said with genuine curiosity. “What would you name your daughter?”

I thought about that one for a moment. “I’d call her Alice.” I said as I shut the door, a smile on my face.


	4. Night in

“Are you sure it’s safe to leave a two week old baby at the hospital?” Lucas spoke absentmindedly, not daring to take his eyes off the tv screen for fear that I would kill his character the moment he looked away.

I didn’t look away either, if I looked away I might have missed a chance to kill his character again. “Unless there’s a mass baby robbing, I’m not scared of leaving her at the hospital; besides, I think you have to be a parent to take a child home, so if the baby robbers want to take it, they’ll need force. And if they want a baby that much they can have it.”

Lucas stared at me, mouth agape. I took this moment to kill his character.

“What?” I said innocently, both of us were trying not to smirk. I was failing.

“That was the most awful thing I have ever heard anyone ever say.” Lucas turned back to face the tv screen and cursed loudly when he saw that his character was dead.

I paused the game and patted Lucas’s shoulder slowly. “Well, let’s face it, I dropped my newborn child at hospital for a check-up and left it there. It’s been like an hour now, so it’s safe to say they can claim it as their own. They don’t even need the guns, they can just waltz in and take it. I’m sure they’ll raise her to be an upstanding citizen.” 

Lucas raised his index finger and prepared to speak in what I’m sure was going to be a witty reply, but he was rudely interrupted by the telephone. “I better get that” I interrupted before Lucas could speak. He looked dejected “It’s probably the hospital calling. They’re going to tell us that they’re claiming the kid as their own due to the one hour finder’s keeper rule.”

I put the phone to my ear; the hospital told me and my spouse to come in right away, our child may be in danger. This was a new type of fear. I’d experienced most of the worst emotions this world had to offer, but the fear and protective nature to save your child is something that was new to me. I almost wish I could have stopped and studied this feeling.

I hung up the phone and grabbed my jacket. “I’ll be right back. I promise.” I picked up my jacket and sprinted out the door, closing it as I went. Right as it closed, I glanced back at Lucas; I remember the look on his face. Gears were turning in his head, digging at a dead and forgotten memory that was buried in a shallow grace. Something was not okay, but I couldn’t think about that right now. My daughter may have been in danger and that was all that mattered. It was time to get my aforementioned spouse and rush as fast as I could. I ran downstairs and pulled them out of bed and into the car. We trusted Lucas to hold down the fort. He had been coming over for the last 4 years every Tuesday and Thursday without incident so far. He was our best friend, and we were his. Now that I think about it, we may have been his only friends.

We drove without thinking, the two lovers throwing caution to the wind to see our child, we hadn’t even named our child and we were not going to let her die. She was going to live. I just knew she was. She needed us to be there, maybe feeling our presence would help her pull through. I was so scared.

That was when the car hit ours. The impact was sudden and violent, and just as my love’s head hit mine, I knew that I would die. Somehow, I imagined I would go just before my daughters sixth birthday in a freak accident. Maybe the curse of seeing the words comes with a time to live. Maybe my father didn’t commit suicide. Deep down, I think I always knew these things but I just didn’t know how to face them.

Somehow I got the feeling that if I worked out my father’s age of death, it would be the same age I am now. Would my Daughter die like I would? I had so many questions.

If my father knew, Is that why he said those things to me the day before he died? There was so much I needed to know and I knew that I would never get my answers.

But what scared me most out of anything, was that my daughter would see the words, and she wouldn’t have anyone to help her or to teach her all of the life lessons I had learned. I wanted to tell her every word my father said to me. But mostly, I just wanted to love her like all parents should love their children. I wanted to cuddle as a family and teach her about the world and dry her tears when she had a nightmare. I wanted to be there for her. But I couldn’t. And that hurt more than anything. More than the car crash, more than the time I felt like I killed my mother. It was just pure, unrelenting hurt.


	5. Midday

“Daddy? I’m hungry.” the little girl moaned impatiently, her arms crossed defiantly.

Lucas chuckled and picked up the girl in his arms. “Alice, I know it’s your birthday today, but you still have to ask nicely.”

Lucas and Alice looked each other in the eyes for a long moment. “Daddy, I’m hungry please.” She said with a cheeky giggle.

Ruffling her hair, Lucas let out a quiet laugh. “You’re just like your parents…” Lucas was about to go on talking, but Alice was focusing on something else, like there was a bug right above his head, it didn’t matter anyway. The pain of losing his two best friends was something he liked to believe he was over, like it was a distant memory.

Alice was staring at him now. Lucas realized he had suddenly stopped talking. “Uhh… Nevermind, I know!” He said enthusiastically. “Why don’t you go play with your new art supplies while I cook you up something to eat.” Lucas put the girl down and headed off to the kitchen as Alice cheered and ran to her new paint set.

“I love you daddy!”

Lucas blushed. It never got old. Time to go make her favourite food…

Bacon and whipped cream, her favourite… With delicate precision, Lucas cooked the bacon until it was extra crispy, just as she liked it. When it was all cooked, he spread whipped cream all over the plate and placed the bacon strips on top of the white foamy bed of cream. Why she liked whipped cream and bacon, he would never know, but she did. And it was her birthday so Alice got what she wanted, even if he refused to let her have it on any other day except Christmas.

“I made you your favourite.” Lucas announced as he entered the living room. Alice was covered in red paint, and Lucas knew that there was a big mess somewhere in the house already. “What did you do sweetie?” He asked with a resigned sigh as he put down the plate of whipped cream and bacon on the nearest table.

Alice was reluctant to answer for a while. “I made a mess in the game room.” She said sheepishly.

Sighing quietly, Lucas patted Alice’s head and moved off to inspect the damage, there was obviously going to be red paint everywhere, he just hoped she didn’t touch the old tv. Whatever he was expecting, this wasn’t it. When Lucas opened the door, he was met with big red letters on a white wall. It was reminiscent of blood.

“I’ll be back soon, I promise”

and in that moment, Lucas had his words back down to two.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd appreciate any reviews. Thanks for reading this...


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